


Poppy-field victory

by Omano



Category: Dominion (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel Wings, Baby Alex, Babysitting, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 19:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5345837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omano/pseuds/Omano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Gabbee!” With full force Alex ran into Gabriel’s legs, wrapping his still chubby arms around the knees.</p>
<p>“Little beastie,” Gabriel greeted in return. He was spiteful. He was an archangel too, so what? “I see you were taken out on a walk.”</p>
<p>
  <em>Set in the same universe as my other fic, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4964044">Angels of War make rather unqualified uncles</a>, but it's all right on its own as well. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Gabriel and Michael are playing uncles to Alex.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poppy-field victory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phoenixmirage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixmirage/gifts).



> I'm hopelessly late for the challange over at [Dominiom Forum](http://dominionforum.net/), but I couldn't let this slide. Plus, even though nothing happens, I couldn't let these ideas bouncing about in my head for eternity. They'd drive me crazy.   
> I hope you'll like it :)
> 
> (We are still not talking about my titles. I hate them. All of them.)

 

Gabriel glided over a clearing - the colours striking, so much like his little brother’s adored steaming spilled blood on snow. A splash of vivid red and patches of faded green in the sea of grey and sand-stones and the withering trees that just started to regrow their leaves after the past month’s drought.

In the middle of all this, as a mirror image of the dark shadow of Gabriel’s wings, sat Michael, absolutely careless about how easily he could be spotted out there in the open.

As soon as his boots treaded down the first handful of poppies, little withering flowers he wasn’t a particularly fond of, a golden head emerged to his right, red petals like droplets of blood among the wild curls, and a joyful cry rang over the clearing.

“Gabbee!” With full force Alex ran into Gabriel’s legs, wrapping his still chubby arms around the knees.

Gabriel rolled his eyes heavenwards. He had never thought that there was something more insufferable than Alex screaming at full volume as an infant, but he was terribly mistaken. The little brat just wouldn’t learn to pronounce the archangel’s name right. Which was even more atrocious as he had absolutely no problem with Michael’s. Only Gabriel’s. And Uriel’s also, but their sister found it more endearing than annoying. Plus along with her sister she wasn’t around the Chosen One often enough to grumble about it.

“Little beastie,” Gabriel greeted in return. He was spiteful. He was an archangel too, so what? “I see you were taken out on a walk.”

Alex only flashed a wide, tooth and gum filled grin. Then, with one hand still clinging to the bootstraps he reached out with the other for the flight-feathers rustling right in front of his nose.

“Alex?” Michael called out. He didn’t bother to stand, but his stern frown was enough to cut through the distance and get Alex cower back at Gabriel’s feet. “What did I tell you about touching our wings?”

“Don’t touch my wings, Alex, without asking first,” he recited guiltily.

“And what were you about to do?”

“But, but Gabbee didn’ say it!”

Michael’s frown tugged lower, it turned darker.

“Gabriel?”

Gabriel sent a mischievous, sharp little smile at his brother. His hand sank into molten gold.

“Experience is a greater master about life than you, little brother,” he drawled. “It’s much akin to feeding a flame a bite of human flesh; feel the pain, let it strike and singe for future years. A little paper-cut on those petite fingers won’t hurt much, will it?”

For a blinking moment Michael only stared, so far from amused, then turned his attention to the boy in his charge.

“Alex, you are not allowed to touch either mine or Gabriel’s wings.”

“ _Why_?”

“Because those are sharp and dangerous things.”

“Like your swords?”

“Yes. Much like my swords.”

The gears turning in the boy’s head could be heard in the momentary silence.

“If I get older, can I touch your wings?”

Michael’s eyebrows quirked high in surprise.

“No.”

“But you promised!”

“That I’ll teach you how to fight with real swords when you get older, but I didn’t say with a word that it would be with mine,” Michael corrected.

Alex jutted out his lower lip in a pout. His big blue eyes rounded twice of their size taking up more than half of his face. He whined, low, coming from his fragile chest, like a hurt baby animal.

Gabriel watched with glee his brother’s obvious struggle. There was terrible fight in the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, bit the inside of his lip to stall the smile and colour both that threatened to overtake his stern expression.

“No touching, Alex.”

“B-But! But!”

“Listen to your master, little beastie,” Gabriel purred softly.

Under his hand the boy squirmed a little, but as he could find absolutely no sympathy in the older archangel, he rather slinked away and plopped down on his bottom a few paces away. Sullen boy.

“Stubborn little thing,” Gabriel murmured as he took a seat next to his brother. One of his wings fell lazy half atop Michael’s, while the other’s stretched out tip was only a few inches behind Alex’s back. Teasing. Tempting. “Despite the undeniable familiarity with you, I still can’t see why you’ve grown so infatuated with him and his kind.”

“They are a lot like you,” Michael countered. The corners of his eyes wrinkled with faint creases at his cheeky delight.

Gabriel grunted. Michael, of course, just stole the words right off the tip of his tongue. “I hope a couple billion perished of this wicked race.”

Before Michael could rebuke him, yet again, from the thick cover of flowers Alex turned up, clawing at Gabriel’s knee with excitement shining bright in his eyes.

“Parish? That’s a city,” he chirped. “It is, right? Uree told me about it. She loves Parish!”

“Does she now?”

“Yes. Yes, she told me. She’ll show me Parish. And art.”

“Like Michael will let you handle his swords?” Alex’s little face got cast over with clouds immediately. “My little brother and sister can be really mean, you know. But remember, you can always trust me.”

Alex turned the words around in his mind. Just for a quick second before he decided he didn’t care for sibling rivalries, and ran away to the edge of the clearing.

“That was quick. What?”

Michael didn’t bother to answer. His glare spoke enough of itself.

They watched as Alex ran about, tearing poppy flowers by the head and then flinging the red petals around himself like rain, before he tried to collect them into a small bouquet that eventually ended up crushed beneath the boy as he stumbled and fell over. One of them occasionally hummed a note; in teasing, in amusement or put-upon irritation.  

“It was Uriel’s idea,” Michael spoke up; his low hum reverberating the atoms of the air and curling pleasantly in Gabriel’s chest. “She wanted to sing and dance in the open. There’s no better lighting than what’s been set by Father Himself.”

“And teach Alex, I assume.”

“If she’s failed to inspire either of us.”

“There’s no grace in the boy,” Gabriel mused. “Energy, yes. Determination, sure, a fool head on his shoulders, definitely. Hit you in the knee with a wooden stick, he’d need all that, you’d agree.”

To his curious, almost even gloating look Michael didn’t answer. Only his jaw worked, to clench his teeth, to hide a smile, a little bit of both, and kept his eyes on Alex who, for the moment, was crawling about on the ground following the slow rippling wriggle of a caterpillar from grass to flower.

“If Uriel tries to teach him to dance he’ll just fall on his face,” Gabriel added, then turned his gaze to his brother. He stared, insistent, while he made sure his amusement would wimple through to his other half’s soul, prodding him until he couldn’t help but return the stare. Then he cracked a wide grin. “Just like you did.”

In an instant Michael’s brows furrowed deep over his eyes, but even that failed to redeem the deep blush that coloured his cheeks.

Before the laughter could escape Gabriel’s chest Michael bolted from his lazy sprawl. Easily, he threw one long leg over his brother’s thighs, hands a firm push against his shoulders, and soon a spray of red petals erupted around them as Gabriel fell on his back.

“You are so adorably vain!” Gabriel laughed.

A growl, deep and threatening like distant thunder was pressed against him through every atom of the beloved body.

In the struggle, however, Michael found a wrist snared, and then the other too. Expression painted in dismay he sat back on Gabriel’s stomach he tried to pull away, but all he managed was to tilt himself off balance.

Quickly, Gabriel pulled up one knee, set his foot on the ground and pushed up his hips.

With a grunt Michael went down.

It was Gabriel’s turn to settle comfortably on top of him. He pulled one hand towards himself, unrelenting until Michael gave up the fuss. He pressed a kiss to the soft skin on the other’s wrist, felt the fluttering pulse beneath. He traced his lips into the centre of the palm, then along the elegant, calloused finger that so willingly unfurled under his touch.

“If you’d picked a puppy as a pet, just as I suggested, we wouldn’t be fighting so,” said Gabriel.

Michael huffed.

“We still would. That’s what I do.”

“Father’s great sword,” Gabriel purred, and pressed another kiss between forefinger and thumb. “You start to taste of rust… What would happen to you, brother, were I to deliver you the Word tomorrow? What if I’d say, _fierce Michael, be a humble son of God and finish what you’ve started_?”

Michael’s hand twitched, unaware, startled, unhappy with the reminder. His fingertips brushed the stubble on Gabriel’s jaw, gentle in their touch but with immense power cruising beneath the skin.

His eyes slipped shut on a sigh.

“Then we’d have to believe that Alex is already a great warrior, even within such a small body.” His gaze blinked up at his brother, then past his side to Alex.

Gabriel followed his look, humming in thought, savouring, cradling the little bird of his brother’s feelings fluttering in his chest.

He imagined Michael, silent and solemn, hard as marble, the line of his crooked smile sharper than any blade, eyes colder than the flood that he brought in his wake. And then he imagined this little boy, this golden little monkey, so full of wonder, who could only climb up a tree but would have no idea how to make his way down. This tiny thing against such rage, passionless terrible might, set at its goal by Gabriel’s Word.

Far worse than facing Goliath with only a sling…

A shiver curled his spine.

Michael cupped his cheek, stealing and offering comfort equally, now that their hearts beat again to the exact same rhythm, rushed by the same idea of worry.

“You are terrible,” Gabriel declared with put-upon annoyance. “You are a match made in Heaven with your little pet.”

The other only scoffed, humour blooming on his cheeks. His fingers splayed, thumb drawing soothing circles, along with his other hand that found its wandering way onto Gabriel’s knee. Gently he caressed colour and warmth both back beneath the elder’s skin.

Gabriel was about to move, snare the pale hands and pin them to the ground, snapping the both of them away from this dangerous line of nostalgia, however, before he could act, as a summer storm, sudden and ever-returning Alex arrived into their bubble, golden, sparkling with energy and so adorably untamable. Gabriel could sense his presence, out of sight but _somewhere_ between his wings that had him repress a wave of shivers again.

“Alex?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

He pulled back, straightening to regain his respectable aura -

“Don’ look, don’ look!”

And just before he could turn he found himself captured by hands and wings and a wild, mischievous smile.

“Michael,” he warned, snarling, low, but his answer was a laugh, nose-wrinkling and teeth-flashing, and utterly beautiful. Distractingly so, until Alex somehow managed to step high enough, probably onto Michael’s knee, to throw an armful of flowers over the twins. Once they might have been attempted to be woven into a crown of some sort, but the poppies had their suicidal idea of their own, and so it was only petals, and stalks, and tiny, sprinkled black seeds raining down on them.

Michael’s laughter mingled with Alex’s ebb and flow of crystal laughter, and even Gabriel found himself smiling.

“You like your gift, Gabbee?” Alex chirped, still from behind, tiny hands patting at the archangel’s shoulder.

“It’s pretty, Alex, thank you. I feel special.”

“Don’t be,” Michael grinned up at him. “I’ve got my gift first.”

“Did you now,” Gabriel rolled his eyes.

In a swift motion he lifted a wing, reached back and grabbed the squirming boy around the waist to pull him - upside-down and screaming in delight - forward below his arm. For good measure he plopped him down on Michael’s chest, which still failed to wipe the cheeky expression from the younger’s face.

Gabriel hummed in thought.

“I might have a little something for you too, beastie.”

Alex immediately tried to right himself. He wriggled around, uncaring if the world was still spinning a little or not, until he could get a sticky hand hooked in one of the leather jacket’s pockets.

“Not so hastily. Did Michael teach you no manners?”

Alex sat back over Michael’s collar bone with a frown.

“Pleeeease?” he tried.

“You’ll have to try a little harder.”

“... Pwetty pleease?”

Gabriel had to bite the inside of his cheek that he wouldn’t grin. He sighed dramatically.

“Ah, well. Look what’s happened to the youth of these days. I wish for the drunk prophets of old, at least they knew how to address an angel properly. I’ll just bring it back to the eyrie and keep it.”

Alex’s eyes flashed with worry. He turned around, slid to the ground and looked begging to Michael, who, by now, looked very serious again.

He beckoned the boy, closer, closer, until the golden locks brushed his forehead, and then, covering their faces with a hand he whispered to Alex, what the boy tried to repeat.

Gabriel turned his face to the sky, pretending that he didn’t hear the long-drawn ‘ _aaaa_ ’ and the choking ‘ _kh_ ’ as Alex tried to imitate Michael’s accented words. He was more of a parrot after all, not even a monster. Colourful, chatty, and just as cheeky.

Finally, Alex stood up, back straight, hands clasped behind his back.

“Yes, Alex?”

“Please aa-kh-angel Gabbeel, could you beast- ugh, beestove… can I get my gift?”

Michael’s soul was shaking with repressed laughter, while on the outside he very seriously nodded his approval at his little pupil’s performance, and Gabriel couldn’t help but feel that reverberating within his own chest. Adorable boy. Both of them. Both of them his, and, as per God’s unfathomable sense of humour, he theirs.

Alex might not carve toys from wood, he might not learn how to play the lyre, but he had already defeated giants. They were both lying and kneeling in front of him, entirely smitten.

It was time Gabriel accepted that his name would never leave those lips as they should, but actually, he didn’t even mind. There were far worse things to be called.

“That would do. But only this time,” Gabriel conceded.

He pulled the necklace out of his pocket, a shiny stone, night-blue shot through with vivid red and orange on a leather strip. He hooked it around Alex’s head; it hung down to his stomach. They’ll fix it later, as soon as they untangled themselves from the hug, as Alex tried to enwrap both angels in his arms.

 


End file.
